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iCloud Photos Library + Migration Assistant

I just got a new 15" touchbar Macbook Pro -- I used my Time Machine backup and migration assistant to get everything moved over.


All good there except I have a question about Photos.


They are restored OK – all my photos are visible in Photos app as well as on icloud.com and my iPhone.


But my new computer is now uploading all 26,000 photos again to iCloud -- this took weeks the first time it uploaded everything.


Is this normal or should I delete my local library and just re-download all pictures from iCloud?

MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Mar 15, 2018 11:14 AM

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Posted on Mar 15, 2018 11:27 AM

But my new computer is now uploading all 26,000 photos again to iCloud -- this took weeks the first time it uploaded everything.


Is this normal or should I delete my local library and just re-download all pictures from iCloud?

It is the expected behavior. When you enable iCloud Photo Library on a new device for he first time, the library will be merged into the existing iCloud Photo Library by uploading all photos again and comparing them.

See: Why is iCloud uploading my entire iCloud Photo library again after I moved its location?


Downloading from iCloud to an empty library will be much more efficient. But if you do that, you will lose the projects. If you do not have any projects to save, that will be fine. If the library in iCloud has been uploaded using Photos 3.0 on High Sierra it will contain the named faces, so they will sync back from iCloud.

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Mar 15, 2018 11:27 AM in response to skeelo221

But my new computer is now uploading all 26,000 photos again to iCloud -- this took weeks the first time it uploaded everything.


Is this normal or should I delete my local library and just re-download all pictures from iCloud?

It is the expected behavior. When you enable iCloud Photo Library on a new device for he first time, the library will be merged into the existing iCloud Photo Library by uploading all photos again and comparing them.

See: Why is iCloud uploading my entire iCloud Photo library again after I moved its location?


Downloading from iCloud to an empty library will be much more efficient. But if you do that, you will lose the projects. If you do not have any projects to save, that will be fine. If the library in iCloud has been uploaded using Photos 3.0 on High Sierra it will contain the named faces, so they will sync back from iCloud.

Mar 15, 2018 11:34 AM in response to skeelo221

normal - anytime you disconnect the library from iCloud (move it, repair it, restore it, turn ICPL off and on, etc) and reconnected it the library integrity has to to verified which requires upload and looking at each photo


You can delete to photos library and download the iCloud library to a new system library(backup first just in case) and you will lose all projects - if you have High Sierra and IOS 11 you will keep face IDs (earlier versions lost them too)


LN

Mar 15, 2018 11:43 AM in response to léonie

Thanks!


I do not have any Projects so I will:


1) Disconnect Wifi

2) Export library to external drive for backup (in addition to Time Machine Backup)

3) Logout of iCloud Photo Library and re-enable Wifi

4) Confirm all photos still visible on icloud.com

5) Delete Photos library off Mac

6) Enable ICPL and have library download to my new computer (this will be MUCH faster than having to upload the 26k photos again. I have a dismal ~2Mbps upload connection at home where at least I can get 15-20 Mbps down. Last time the uploading saturated my network and the internet was unusable while it was uploading)


Edit: This is crazy behavior. It seems like it would be very easy to upload a small metadata .db file to iCloud to be able to compare the contents of the local library vs. ICPL. To re-upload the entire library seems quite ludicrous. Anyway, I appreciate the posts that this is "normal"

iCloud Photos Library + Migration Assistant

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